Anyway, wherever he had been, Patsy slept all that day on Nancy’s bed, the most exhausted kitten ever seen. And he never told the Club what adventures he had experienced on Midsummer Eve.
Hugh and Victor met Captain Sackett that morning when they went to the Harbor for the mail, and they asked him if he had seen an old Indian woman in the neighborhood.
The Captain scratched his head thoughtfully. “Why yes,” said he, in his nasal drawl, “did see an old woman in a shawl early this mornin’, when I went haulin’. Yes, she had a bundle in her canoe. I guess it was grass, or herbs or somethin’. She’s quite a character. But I haven’t seen her around for some time till this mornin’. They say her tribe owned this whole shore once. But not in my time, nor in my father’s or grandfather’s, I guess. The Indians were treated pretty mean, sometimes.”
“Where do you suppose she is now, Cap’n?” queried Hugh. The Captain shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” said he. “We can’t keep tabs on everything that goes on along this coast full of islands. I guess I’ll run up and take a look at Idlewild this afternoon. Mr. Poole asked me to kinder keep an eye on it. Say, has the little girl been up there yet? Little Anne, I mean?”
The boys said No, she hadn’t had time yet. The old man sighed. “I hope she’ll come to see me too,” he said. “But I don’t want you to tell her so.”
Hugh laughed. “Whatever you tell her, she is likely to do the opposite thing,” he said. “She’s a spoiled kid, Cap’n.”
Again the Captain sighed. “I guess she is,” he said.
But Victor put in a good word for the newcomer. “She’s awfully fond of animals, anyway,” he said.
“A little cat!” laughed Hugh.